What you need to know:
-I went to #SCGDFW and finished 11-4, good for 22nd place.
-Abzan Aggro was my weapon of choice, which I regretted slightly.
–Stormbreath Dragon beat me twice, the mirror beat me once, and Dragonlord Atarka beat me once. My other matches went as planned.
This is what I played:
Creatures (21)
- 4 Fleecemane Lion
- 2 Heir of the Wilds
- 4 Anafenza, the Foremost
- 3 Wingmate Roc
- 4 Rakshasa Deathdealer
- 4 Siege Rhino
Lands (26)
Spells (13)
The Deck
I didn’t change much from my MOCS winning list. Sorin, Solemn Visitor got cut for a third Wingmate Roc, and Warden of the First Tree got swapped with Heir
of the Wilds. Warden of the First Tree, overall, wasn’t bad. If you’re on the draw, their removal generally lines up pretty well, so you’ll often have no
board by the time Turn 5 rolls around. However, if you got to sneak in two spells in one turn or play a one-drop, they’ll often be taking a hit every turn,
unable to remove two creatures from the board in the same turn.
That situation means that Wingmate Roc is much easier to raid, and it’s much easier to finish off your opponent if they semi-stabilize at twelve instead of
twenty. However, I was more worried about the mirror matches, especially on the draw, than I was about control decks. The funny thing about that matchup is
that even if they do stabilize at twenty, something like Rakshasa Deathdealer might just kill them anyway. Obviously killing them quicker is much more
important when you’re trying to fade big draw steps like Dig Through Time, but it’s still manageable.
Sorin, Solemn Visitor was always kind of mopey. While lifelinking your team might seem great against something like Atarka Red, I often didn’t have many
creatures in play. By swinging with your one or two creatures, you open the door for a potentially big attack from them. Ojutai’s Summons is a fine Magic
card, but not one that I had any interest in playing.
The sideboard changed significantly, but we’ll get to that.
Why Play This Deck?
As I mentioned last week, flying is a powerful mechanic.
I don’t think any of my opponents could have realistically defeated this card. Since Dromoka’s Command is a gigantic beating against Whip of Erebos, and I
have no idea how to build a current Whip of Erebos-style deck, I turned to another flier that’s almost as good.
It’s actually not that easy to clone our big bird via raid, but we can make it happen by jumping through some hoops. I wouldn’t exactly guarantee victory
if it happens, but I don’t think I’ve lost to a green deck when it’s happened.
Playing A Disruptive Little Creature Deck
My favorite archetype to play is do-nothing control (with velocity, not a bunch of expensive spells), tempo decks (when someone is nice enough to point out
to me that they are tempo decks and I shouldn’t be building them like control decks), and then midrangey green decks that are able to adapt their roles.
Sometimes, that third category overlaps with something like B/W Hand to Hand, and I enjoy those decks equally. Most of the time, you’re treading water
against decks that are slightly bigger than you, as you struggle to close the door fast enough that their big stuff is too slow. I enjoy using things like
Umezawa’s Jitte (or Rakshasa Deathdealer) to make their big stuff not matter, discard to snipe their big cards before they’re able to cast them, or a trump
after sideboard to do what they do, only better.
Against everybody else, it’s all about tightening the noose. Maybe you get a tempo advantage, dump your hand before they do, and they can’t catch up. Maybe
you mulliganned, got Hymn to Tourached, and are flooding out but have some great mana sinks to slowly take apart their board position. Maybe their key plan
hinges on a single card that you’re able to Thoughtseize. Either way, you’ve got game against a wide variety of decks and most of the games play out
differently.
Tightening the noose often comes from things like Wingmate Roc, Fleecemane Lion, and Rakshasa Deathdealer. Your opponent might be struggling to beat what
you’ve got in play, so it’s all about not giving them an opportunity to use their cards effectively. There have been situations where they were setting up
for a big turn where they could use two removal spells in one turn to stabilize, but that’s when you need to be careful to not expose your Rakshasa
Deathdealers to a Draconic Roar.
Maybe the situation is that, in case of a topdecked removal spell, you actually need to expose your Rakshasa Deathdealer to a removal spell in order to
make both your threats lethal. That way, if they have one removal spell, they’re still going to die.
Sometimes tightening the noose actually means slowing down and not exposing your creature in combat. I’ve had turns where Anafenza, the Foremost doesn’t
attack or block because I’m going to need the 4/4 body in order to fight something with Dromoka’s Command. Trading it away in combat might seem fine, but
if your opponent wants to trade with Anafenza, the Foremost and then stabilize behind their own 4/4 or 5/5, trading mine away doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Most of the time, your gameplan is clear — You should be attacking. However, sometimes your opponent’s gameplan is equally clear, and you need to deviate
from your plan in order to stop them from accomplishing theirs.
You’re often dealing your opponent small increments of damage, so they’ll have plenty of time to get to their bigger cards. What you need to do is cut them
off from whatever options they have. If you’re scared of End Hostilities, spend your turn using monstrosity on your Fleecemane Lion or leave open mana for
Rakshasa Deathdealer. If you need to be able to put them in a worse position after they draw a chump blocker, maybe you’ll have to pump your Rakshasa
Deathdealer this turn, tapping out, so that they are actually forced to chump block on the next turn.
Against Stephen Garcia in Round 6, he had inevitability. Still, I was able to fight on thanks to my own card advantage in Abzan Charm and Tasigur, the
Golden Fang. Each game went rather late and, despite some mistakes on my end, I was still able to go toe to toe with him. Part of the reason was because I
paced myself, part of it was because I had card advantage, and part of it was the fact that I knew I would be able to go toe to toe, so I rarely felt like
I was in a position where I had to overextend into his sweepers.
Playing well is complicated, but it will get easier with practice. Plus, this is all fairly abstract, but hopefully it will get you thinking about how to
apply some of this stuff during game play.
The Mardu Dragons Matchup
Naturally, when you don’t practice, you get punished. In Round 4, I lost to Mardu Dragons because I didn’t have an adequate sideboard plan. When I played
against it the second time, I was able to figure something out, somewhat on the fly.
This is what I would do now:
Out:
In:
The goal is to stick a threat and protect it from their removal. With my decklist, you’ll need to be able to win the race since you’re probably not beating
Stormbreath Dragon any other way. Duress, while it could miss, is important for having a one-mana spell that will function similarly to a Gods Willing.
I wouldn’t worry about Goblin Rabblemaster because if you’re doing your job, Goblin Rabblemaster is rather anemic compared to your large creatures.
The Nissa, Worldwaker was a proxy for Mistcutter Hydra, who is worse against Esper Dragons but actually a card you’d want to sideboard in against Abzan
Control. Here, it doubles as a way to beat their removal while also potentially racing a Stormbreath Dragon. I liked her.
Overall, this plan is not a great one, at least if you expect a bunch of Mardu Dragons. We can do better, but it probably involves some Ultimate Prices,
which I sorely missed throughout the tournament. I do think it was the best plan I had given the decklist I registered though.
Charmed, I’m Sure
I played three sets of fun games against Todd Anderson during the tournament and went 2-7, 2-4, and 2-3. My draws were at least fine and sometimes great,
but I typically lost. Basically, I suck and Todd is great.
The big reason I lost so much was that I kept trying to play a card advantage game with Abzan Charm instead of only using it as removal. The cards I wanted
to draw were usually removal spells anyway.
It could be anything, even a removal spell!
Focus on getting ahead on board, at least in Game 1, and the rest should fall into place. This deck isn’t very good at coming back from behind.
Abzan Charm was the best card in the deck, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. You either wanted a Divination or a Doom Blade depending on the
matchup, and the combat trick was just a bonus. With people rightfully going back to Stormbreath Dragon, Abzan Charm is no longer the freeroll it once was.
Regardless, Abzan Charm gives you plenty of options, and with more options comes more opportunities to mess things up. Be careful.
The Abzan Aggro Matchup
Part of the reason for a new (and hopefully improved) sideboard was the mirror. Most of the time, you could sideboard something like four Self-Inflicted
Wounds and call it a day, but instead of using my sideboard to make a small upgrade, I prefer to shift the scales dramatically. In order to do that, I
needed a plan.
Out (on the play):
In (on the play):
Out (on the draw):
In (on the draw):
On the draw, you’re mostly fighting to not fall behind. Anafenza, the Foremost will basically never match up well against any of their creatures, and
Rakshasa Deathdealer, while one of your best cards lategame, won’t be able to stand up against any of their creatures without a significant mana
investment, which you often won’t be able to spend.
On the draw you want to be trying to stabilize and stop them from raiding a Wingmate Roc. On the play, you prevent them from raiding Wingmate Roc by
putting pressure on them and forcing them to react to you. Hornet Nest isn’t very good when you’re trying to be proactive, and while Thoughtseize is fine,
you’d much rather have another threat.
If you play Thoughtseize into Hornet Nest on the play in the mirror match, you’ve done basically nothing, and now they have plenty of time to find a
workaround to Hornet Nest.
How Good Is Dromoka’s Command?
Honestly, I’m about ready to cut these. I rarely want them in my deck after sideboard against Courser of Kruphix decks because they are trying to remove
all my threats and rarely have other targets for the enchantment hate ability. Getting a two-for-one is so difficult that I’d rather not even bother.
Stormbreath Dragon and company are back, which means Ultimate Price should probably be in the 75 somewhere. Since the mirror still exists, we can’t really
jam in a bunch of them and expect to do well. It’s a balancing act, and one that I’d rather avoid by playing an entirely new deck that’s well-positioned
instead of trying to make Abzan Aggro beat everything.
The Manabase
Again, I played eleven enters-the-battlefield-tapped lands, and it felt great. Several times I kept a four or five land hand, only to look down on Turn 6
and realize I’d drawn mostly spells. The Temples were certainly to thank for a lot of that.
Temple of Silence is probably the correct Temple to max out on because of how great it is with Windswept Heath into Forest. All of your mana troubles are
gone in the earlygame with that sequence, plus you should almost always be able to use all of your mana to pump Rakshasa Deathdealer. When you go Temple of
Malady into Plains, you don’t have the same luxury unless you or your opponent have an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in play.
There were some games where I’d curve out with a painland-heavy draw, and those usually felt great too. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some happy
medium with Mana Confluences and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth where you’d be able to cast all your spells on time.
Get Creative
Playing Abzan Aggro was very similar to playing games of Limited. There was plenty of combat math, attacking and blocking, and tricks involved. There were
also some games where I wasn’t a favorite, but I was able to make some bold plays in an attempt to get back in it. In some cases, it worked.
In Game 1 of the mirror, I was facing down a Siege Rhino, Fleecemane Lion, and an unknown card that I could only assume was a spell based on the way my
opponent was playing. I had an Anafenza, the Foremost (which didn’t stack up to his creatures, as per usual), a Thoughtseize in hand that I didn’t think I
could afford to cast, a second copy of Anafenza, the Foremost, and a topdecked Siege Rhino. We both had seven land.
I knew my Anafenza, the Foremost was mostly useless since it couldn’t attack or block profitably. However, there was basically no reason for me not to try
and get some value out of it. A chump attack wasn’t likely to go my way since if I had Dromoka’s Command or Abzan Charm, I could simply use them. Plus, I
didn’t have one on the previous turns, otherwise I definitely would have used it.
Still, even though my opponent was likely to block, I had the backup copy in hand and could deploy it that turn for free. There was a small chance that the
second copy could be useful if, for example, I double blocked his Siege Rhino the next turn and he killed my Anafenza, but that didn’t seem likely.
I attacked, he didn’t block, perhaps not thinking through the possibility of what I could have. If he did, he likely would have come to the conclusion that
the cards that make it safe for him to not block don’t really make sense for me to have. If I had Dromoka’s Command or Abzan Charm, both are better to just
cast before I attack, therefore ensuring some damage gets through.
A few turns later, I was at one life, but was attacking for lethal.
Going Forward
I should have switched decks. I could feel it. I felt like everybody knew, and people were changing their decks accordingly. As it turns out, I only felt
like three of my opponents were ready to beat me, but each of them did. Perhaps that could have been avoided.
My ticket to #SCGDFW was purchased on the notion that my Abzan Aggro deck was great, but that didn’t mean I was obligated to play it. I was even telling
people the night before that I thought I built a better deck on the plane. In the end, I was worried that the new deck would be a flop and the known deck
would still be great, but I should have trusted my gut.
Next week: Something new.